


the sea where one's home planet reflects

by dreadfulbeauties



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Angst, Gen, Regret, Strained Parent-Child Relationships, Suicidal Thoughts, i am sad and so is lancelot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27394570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadfulbeauties/pseuds/dreadfulbeauties
Summary: Lancelot, before and after the Grail they couldn't find and the son he always saw as a ghost.
Relationships: lancelot du lac/arthur pendragon (very much implied)
Kudos: 6





	the sea where one's home planet reflects

Lancelot does not wish he was dead. To die would mean that he would be hailed as tragic and that all the worst parts of him would be scrubbed away, but he’s too much of a coward to go out in a blaze of glory lest do the deed himself. So he stays alive, even though a part of him wonders why.

But dying, Elaine had said to him when they’d first met, is for cowards. At least the matter of taking one’s own life. If he didn’t have those raw, wretched memories carved deep into his mind he might find Elaine beautiful with her dimpled chin and green, green eyes. But she is the reason he can no longer weave miracles into life, or breath righteousness into the air. He hates her, even though everyone else claims she doesn’t deserve to be hated — she was young, as was he, and they made mistakes.

There are nights, though, where Lancelot wonders what might happen if he could just disappear.

Dreams are both a respite and a curse upon him. It is through his dreams that he can hack at monsters that he can barely glimpse at, blindingly black against a background of white patterned faintly like the windows in a church. He does not feel the pain, not even when his arm is ripped straight from its socket. He wakes up, his hands stinging. But his dreams are wonderful, too, because in his dreams Lancelot can go back to childhood. Back and back and back.

Back to France. The sea was so lovely there, wasn’t it? It certainly was when he’d first shown Arthur. Lord, they were so young then, mere children trying to make room for themselves in a world that was far too big. In his dreams he can be a child again, pulling Arthur to the shore — he’s memorized this moment, it’s one of those memories that he cradles close to him as if it were a precious doll. The sea is ink black, sparkling beneath a faintly star-studded sky. The moon gleams full and pearly above, a shaky imitation of it reflected upon the still waters. They stand there at the precipice, listening to the whispering of waves at the clean white sand far below.

“It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” 

Arthur nods at this.

“I wonder what would happen—“ (this is his favorite part, because while it never happened in the actual visit, it happens here) “—If… you just fell into those waters and instead of drowning you met that moon’s reflection.”

He plunges into the waters in his dreams, hands reaching towards melting stars. Arthur is distant in this part of his dreams but that’s alright. Lancelot is perfectly happy to have a flawless but fuzzy copy as opposed to the painfully clear, imperfect reality. What little he had with Arthur is gone, but he likes to turn over the memories of a first love in his mind. It’s here that he can just drift by himself in the sky. Away from a son that’s a reminder of his uselessness, away from Elaine and Guinevere, away from memories like roses in their pricking perfection.

Here he can disappear. He’s nothing and the stars all at once.

* * *

He returns to the sea once more after the Grail Quest.

His son is gone and it is his fault. He was never able to love him enough, another unflinching reminder of how he’s nothing but shortcomings. He stands at the cliffs that night, looking to the shore below. Briefly he _does_ contemplate dying — throwing himself off the cliffs till his bones splinter on the ground or till the sea’s deceptively serene depths pull him under.

He casts that thought aside. He can’t go through with it. Which makes him worse, but he’s already a miserably held-together pile of skin and bones, isn’t he?

He mourns for a son he always saw as a ghost. Galahad, he thinks to himself, I am sorry. I am sorry for all I _didn’t_ do. I am sorry I was always a hair’s breadth away from hating you. Can you forgive me? You don’t have to. You probably won’t. I don’t deserve to be forgiven. I’m the reason you’re gone and have a wooden cross marking your grave, aren’t I? I’m sorry. I really am.

Once more, he imagines falling into the waters. He knows if he does those melting moon and stars won’t greet him.

He loves his son. He loves the father he could have been.

He doesn’t jump. He knows what will happen if he does. He’s not even sure he deserves the peace that comes with death. To stay alive is his retribution.

But he wonders what might happen if he floats away in the waters till the world tilts upside down, and he falls towards the melting stars and moon.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this when i was simultaneously half-asleep, anxious, and reminiscing over italo calvino's cosmicomics and it sure reads like it :]
> 
> this is... i don't know what to tell you or what i was implying. interpret it however you want, i'm still kinda scratching my head at whatever the heck i was trying to achieve anyways. it's a bit of a vent, i suppose.


End file.
